


A Year, Out of Order

by oneinspats



Category: Discworld
Genre: Downey is a stroppy shit at times bless his tiger stripped heart, Gen, M/M, Patricianship, a year in a life, inhumation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 19:23:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16311215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneinspats/pseuds/oneinspats
Summary: The year Vetinari becomes Patrician, but in no particular order.





	A Year, Out of Order

**Author's Note:**

> I sat upon the shore  
> Fishing, with the arid plain behind me  
> Shall I at least set my lands in order?  
> London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down  
> Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina  
> Quando fiam uti chelidon—O swallow swallow  
> Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie  
> These fragments I have shored against my ruins  
> Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.  
> Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.  
>  Shantih shantih shantih
> 
> \-- Waste Land, TS Eliot

_August,_  it always starts here although this is not the new year it ought to be. There should be a celebration like that Small God’s Eve but Small Mercies Eve or Small Miracles Eve. They do not call the days that allowed Vetinari to become Patrician a revolution or a rebellion or a revolt. A man for subtlety it simply was he was not there then he was. If you blink, you missed it. Like a magician, he knows how things are done with mirrors and smoke. A note in looping handwriting pinned to Snapcase’s jacket is a proto-assassin receipt. “Rate: One Meal at Little Syrrit House and a Lordship in due time.”

But we’re not there yet, though that’s where it starts. Downey has years starting and ending in August which he blames on Vetinari and Vetinari blames it on Snapcase being too well protected before that month and Snapcase is dead so cannot blame it on anyone.

 

 _April,_  brings out Downey’s desire to be outside at all costs. He takes Vetinari with him on his excursions to Hide Park to collect butterflies. His approach is to catch, catalogue then release. The only ones that end up pinned in his little glass boxes are those already dead. Waxing philosophical about the crime of murdering animals and bugs he shows off a pretty grey one to Vetinari. ‘Same kind as this one,’ he points to a sketch of an elegant green butterfly. ‘But due to our city’s miserable pollution issue it’s grey.’

Vetinari, propped against a tree with his books on middle-Klatchian, finds this fascinating. Unable to respond to Downey’s talk on insects he explains the evolution of Klatchian thieve’s slang. Downey says, ‘you’re such a nerd.’ But he’s smiling. Vetinari primly returns to his book. He doesn’t know what to do with Downey’s smile so tucks it away. Such are spring months, Vetinari knows that everything here in his life as it is will not last. It will pass away and become something different. He will not allow himself to be maudlin about it.

 

 _Ember,_ Vetinari points out it will be some time before Downey gets any of his payment but the man’s vicious smile leaves a tumble of unspoken words which Vetinari wishes he hadn’t heard because they speak to a cruelty beneath Downey’s well manicured appearance that discomforts. Stupid lads who chuck apples at you, call you DB, and make puns when they’re feeling awkward aren’t supposed to wear snakeskin under their clothes.

Oh of course he has always known Downey to be capable of cruelty. But he knows there to be a difference between a man’s necessary cruelty and a cruel man. Downey has always been brash, arrogant, stroppy, and mean. But not cruel. The line is thin but Vetinari knows what it looks like when someone crosses over it.

 

 _Ick,_ shortest and coldest month. They don’t speak for a fortnight because Vetinari said something something, oh he isn’t sure what, and Downey is annoyed with him. Downey snaps, ‘one day you’ll figure out how to human but I won’t be here because I’m not waiting for it.’ Vetinari points out that he is a human therefore – but he can’t finished his sentence because Downey throws his hands up declaring ‘this is exactly it.’

Downey waits a week for an apology but it never comes. He waits another week then stops waiting. What was it that DB said to annoy him? He can’t remember. Such a clever man is DB, such a wicked smart man. Downey has little issue with DB being eons smarter than him, he only asks for some margins of humanity around the edges of cold machine that is DB. He says, ‘I know there’s something like warmth in you. Stop pretending to be something you’re not. I know you too well, it won’t work on me. Maybe it will when you’re Patrician. Maybe when you’re Patrician you’ll fossilize. But you’re not yet so spare me your performativity.’ He doesn’t say how much he adores DB’s theatrics. More than that he adores DB’s stillness.

 

 _Sektober,_ Soulcake Duck Night comes and goes. Someone leaves a chocolate orange by Vetinari’s bookshelf in his room which is something that shouldn’t happen so he sends a note to Downey. Downey replies, ‘I’ve not poisoned it, in case you were wondering.’ Vetinari hadn’t wondered but now he does. Downey says all sorts of things, always has done since they were students together. Vetinari firmly believes that he must lock the door to the room in his mind where Downey sometimes rents space.

He hasn’t decided where he is going to sleep in the palace. Everything is moth-filled, little grey feathery bodies murdered with brooms as they emerge from closets and chests. The servants are tenacious. When Snapcase died he left an awfully large stain in the Oblong office floor, one that takes a month to get out and even then the memory of it remains. Vetinari considers his office to be a highly controlled environment but trust Downey to be the cause of the one piece of disorder that exists. Workers had to strip and re-stain the wood so summer ended with workmen cluttering up Vetinari’s new office. He didn’t mind, though he sent their bills to Downey who sent them back unpaid because when has Downey ever paid?

 

 _June_ , Downey knocks on Vetinari’s door. ‘I’ve got something for you. For when you’re the man in the castle.’ ‘It’s a palace, Downey.’ ‘Whatever, here.’ It’s a small journal with segmented pages. Downey explains that it’s a diary but you get to write in the dates so one day can be two pages, if necessary. ‘You can start it whenever you need to,’ he continues. ‘So you know, if it all happens and you’re up in the hot seat at an odd time to buy diaries.’

It is odd, having someone other than Madam know his plans. He doesn’t like it. Mostly because it means Downey wants to be helpful because Downey says, ‘you’re mad as a hatter, Dog-botherer, so there’s no way that position is going to make you more mad than you already are.’ It’s said earnestly and desperately. Vetinari wishes Downey had never said it because it told him too much about what Downey wishes to never witness and never have to do. Vetinari says, ‘if I go the way of Snapcase you’ve my permission to put me out of my misery.’ Downey’s face is painful to look at.

 

 _March,_ a very wet month. Downey finds a dog about to be put in the Ankh by a miserable youth. He roughs the youth up and keeps the dog. ‘He’s going to be large,’ he proudly says as the dog puts his muddy paws all over Vetinari’s clean room. ‘But he’s clearly a dumb thing,’ Downey continues with evident affection. ‘Dumb as a doorknob aren’t you?’ The dog pants up at them stupidly. Vetinari suggests a classical name for the creature but Downey won’t have it. He knows Vetinari only suggested it because he thought it something Downey would go for. ‘His name is Wilber. Wilber the Fierce.’ Vetinari looks up at the ceiling and Downey thinks it a sweet way of laughing.

Wilber turns out to be some form of mutt. A mix of all the big Ramtop hounds with something of a shepherd in him. Downey likes to tell Vetinari how he is progressing in his training. Downey could talk about Wilber for hours. Vetinari says, ‘you’re terribly keen on this. It’s worse than your penchant for discussing fungi at length. I dread the day you become a father.’ To which Downey says in his caustic manner, ‘me? A father? Never. I teach, I already have kids. They’re all monsters.’

 

 _December,_  brings a late first snow to the city. The first Hogswatch of Vetinari Patricianship is uncertain. Everyone looks at him differently - not just a ‘you’re in power’ manner but a ‘we’re looking for your sanity’ manner. To make sure he still has it. To make sure it’s not about to scarper off somewhere else. To make sure he’s not becoming Snapcase. Vetinari never expected such searching looks to bother him and they don’t. (Mostly.) When it’s Lord Rust, Lord Venturi, Mr. Slant, Dr. Cruces it doesn’t bother him. It’s Hogswatch Eve at Guild Hogswatch Dinner when Downey does it. And Vetinari decides it doesn’t bother him. What does Downey’s opinion matter? It doesn’t. So Vetinari casts the scrutiny and all the layers within it aside.

And there are many ways to cast aside unimportant things. Vetinari has become like the old legend of the Fisher King. There is much to put right in his land. Ineffective and fearsome city officials to dislodge. It’s a cleaning of house, you take the carpets to the backyard and beat them. Watch the dirt come loose and blow away. He has not spoken to Downey in person since ascending to this high office. The highest in the land since the Kingship hardly counts anymore. It is strange to not have that man leering at him saying things like, ‘what’s that Dog-botherer? Cat got your tongue?’ Then laughing.

 

 _May,_  what is there to say about May?

 

 _Spune,_  Downey has not seen Vetinari since the Ascension to the hot seat of Patrician. It’s been a month. Dr. Cruces seems miserable about the entire situation which is something, at least. Downey is generally pleased when Dr. Cruces is upset. Things that upset Dr. Cruces that Downey has decided he loves includes, but is not limited to, the following: spearmint ice cream, the new fashion for students of brightly coloured stockings beneath their uniform breeches, Klatchian horses, silver bells, Genuan _aguadente_ aged 15 years in oak, Brindisi _vinho verde_ , reports written in blue ink instead of black, Vetinari as patrician.

‘I don’t understand why this pleases you,’ Dr. Cruces says after a fruitless guild meeting. ‘Vetinari hates you.’ Downey says with great equanimity, ‘but he would never let that cloud his judgement which is more than can be said for you.’ Downey does not say that Vetinari rarely hates. He can be annoyed by things, disgusted even. But hate? That’s an emotion you really have to work to earn. Things Vetinari hates that Downey knows of includes, but is not limited to, the following: Mimes, wind and reed instruments, disordered filing, uneven wall decorations, asparagus.

 

 _February,_  Vetinari contemplates the future. He knows it will be within this year that he will become Patrician and the air is tense with potential. The city roils and writhes in the electricity that proceeds storms. People brush against each other, look at each other with meaning, they know there is something coming. But what? Vetinari asks Downey if he ever particiapted in any of the rebellions and uprisings against Snapcase to which Downey said, ‘oh, you know.’ Vetinari replies, ‘no, I don’t know, which is why I’m asking.’ Downey smiles, pats his cheek, and says it’s in the past.

Vetinari wonders how best to make it clear to Downey that when the man inevitably becomes head of the Assassins’ Guild Vetinari will expect a certain protocol from him. There will be no calling him “Havelock” or leaning on their past amiableness for favours. It doesn’t occur to him that Downey doesn’t require such a talk until years later when Vetinari will think, ‘oh, he’s the only one other than the Commander who hasn’t tried to call me Havelock.’

 

 _Grune,_  what does Downey want as payment? ‘Take me to that new Klatchian place, Syrrit House or whatever it’s called. And I want to be a lord. Lord Downey has a nice ring to it.’ Vetinari says he will see what he can do. They talk about payments and methods and old school fellows and former Patricians and strange little memories from their youth and everything that isn’t right in front of them which is the Patrician’s palace. It dominates the Ankh-Morpork skyline. Vetinari can see everything slowly settling into place. He says, ‘August. It’ll be in August.’

 

 _August,_  Downey shows up saying he has an appointment with Vetinari. He stands where the invisible stain of Snapcase resides. His boots on the wood that he had dirtied a year ago. Vetinari says, ‘messy inhumations were never your thing. You prefer clean and delicate.’ Downey agrees but assures Vetinari that were he to ever inhume him it wouldn’t be embarrassing. It’d be tasteful, a poison, he wouldn’t be shamed.

Downey asks, ‘you ever think about doing something else?’ Vetinari thinks for a long time. So long Downey fidgets and the clock in the hall can be heard through those oak doors and Wonse’s quill scratching on parchment is a feint noise.

At length Vetinari says slowly, ‘I have. Once upon a time. But I was a different person and the world was a different place and the people in my life were different than they are now.’ 

‘Where would you be now, if you weren’t patrician?’ 

‘Downey.’

‘Dog-botherer?’ 

Vetinari opens his mouth then closes it. Downey’s smiling that smile that still sits in Vetinari’s pocket. The one he never knows what to do with because it’s a rare, sudden thing he only gives to certain people. 

‘Don’t let me detain you.’ 

Downey’s smile continues, ‘fine, fine. Be mysterious. I’ll see you next year. Don’t go mad in my absence. August is a fine month for anniversaries.’ 


End file.
